Saturday, July 21, 2018

Five Minutes: Train vs. Bicycle

You could hear the train for a full thirty seconds before it got within range. Anyone interested in their own safety would give it room.

We waited with our musical equipment to watch the train pass. No need to turn your back on a train. It's like turning your back on the ocean - you just don't do it. Not if you want to be safe. Not if you don't want to be bad news.

Or, maybe I was overly cautious. My mom filled me with fear saying that a train would suck me right under it and cut off my legs and arms if I got too close. How close is too close? We were nearly too close.

I hear laughter from the band. It was a good night of music and the tips were decent. Plus, the beer was free and flowed plentifully. William even enjoyed a giant marguerita. It took three hours to drink, but there was beer in between. And oh, the sizzling fajitas (which we did pay for) hit the spot.

We played every song we'd rehearsed, and then because they wanted more, we played them all again. We could have gone all Grateful Dead and jammed twenty minutes on two songs, but instead repeated the set. I was ready to improvise new tunes, and we even tried that.

Now the load out and the train. So loud we couldn't even hear Dee's voice (normally audible even in a stadium filled with people) and then it happened. With the train just a few feet away and not slowing for a moment, a bicycle sped across the tracks.

For a moment I saw the rider sucked under the massive train, severed limbs flying in every direction.

But the train missed the rider, the rider missed the train, and life for now went on.

"What the hell! Is he crazy?" she said, now perfectly audible for about a mile.

Trains. Bicycles. And we weren't even in Boulder.

-- doug smith

Five Minutes: Writing improvisationally without filters for five minutes and then stopping. Then, perhaps, finding a random image to go with it.